Virtual Anarchy of Free Traders
David Wallace Croft
croft@alumni.caltech.edu
1998-04-26
Overview
The "Virtual Anarchy of Free Traders" project is intended to
deploy a mobile agent framework that implements usage-sensitive
metering of computational resources.
Expected benefits of this framework include gaining the advantages
of efficiencies inherent in an cost-based free market economony and
providing an objective metric for the performance of learning systems.
The Java programming language is used for its built-in features
of security, portability, mobility, object-oriented programming,
and networking.
Background
Status Update
For flexibility, there is now a reliance upon the concept of "roles".
See
Agents, Actors, Roles, and Semantic Interfaces.
Agents that can be launched are now kept in V:\agents as
serialized objects. Currently, agents must have the filename
extension ".actor".
(From the previous status update report.)
Although an agent currently has the authority to write to the
standard output on the remote host, security restrictions currently
prevent it from doing anything more -- such as returning the result
of a long computation. This makes the agent framework pretty useless
right now. A future modification to the HostSecurityManager will allow
more flexibility at a price.
Software
Installation
- Install
Java version 1.1 or higher.
- Download vaft.zip and
unzip it into a new directory. Be sure to preserve
the directory hierarchy while unzipping.
- From the DOS prompt, run bat\vaft_path.bat to set your paths.
This will probably need modification.
- Run vaft_javac_all.bat for a clean compile.
- Run vaft.bat.
Tutorial
- Run vaft.bat.
- Run vaft2.bat.
- Run vaft3.bat.
- Select HostList/Display in the VAFT3 window.
Notice how VAFT3 now knows about VAFT.
It received its HostInfo about VAFT from VAFT2.
- Kill the VAFT2 window.
- In the VAFT3 window, select VAFT/Launch,
highlight all of the selections,
and press the "Launch" button.
- Observe the DOS console windows: you have launched
an agent into VAFT and VAFT3.
Creating Agents
Agents that can be launched are now kept in V:\agents (or whatever
the argument "agent_dir" is set to) as serialized objects.
Currently, agents must have the filename extension ".actor".
The file V:\agents\example.bat shows you how to serialize two example
agents. You may also wish to use a bean editor but I have not
tried this myself.
Links
Working Notes to Self
- Extend on the AgentRemote host concept.
- Check into relaxing the security in a controlled manner.
(Note to self: can it read from the standard input?)
- Check out "Leases" in Java Spaces.
- Check out the MIT "Challenger" paper.
Back
http://www.alumni.caltech.edu/~croft/research/agent/vaft/
David Wallace Croft,
croft@alumni.caltech.edu
Posted 1998-02-22.